


Introspective to Say the Least

by Thecat_iswriting



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Gen, Hogwarts, Lupin - Freeform, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28477245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thecat_iswriting/pseuds/Thecat_iswriting
Summary: When Lupin wakes up on Monday morning, late for class already, he isn't quite prepared for what the day might bring - or reveal.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Introspective to Say the Least

_Bugger_

Lupin swore to himself as he glimpsed at the time through the misty scratched surface of his wrist watch. Picking up the pace he turned the corner, avoiding a close collision with a group of Hufflepuff students.

‘Morning Professor.’

‘Morning, morning.’ Lupin politely greeted over his shoulder not having the time to linger.

He cursed his greed for an extra hour of sleep this morning, despite his body honestly needing it, he paid the price now.

Lupin pulled on his teaching cloak as he entered the Great Hall and sped up towards the staff table adjusting his worn out collar. He returned polite morning greetings to the remaining teachers that were sharing a quick word with each other before heading off to their own Monday morning class. Grabbing a still warm piece of toast, he stuck it between his teeth before beginning to cut an apple into quarters.

Lupin turned his wrist briefly taking another peak at the time. He swallowed quickly and spooned an unintentionally large amount of marmalade onto his half bitten piece of toast. As he did so, a looming figure had drawn beside him, blocking the beam of morning sun that had been pleasantly spilling onto him.

‘Lupin.’ Came the familiar slow drawl.

Lupin looked up smiling courteously. ‘Good morning Severus.’

‘I trust you had a pleasant time off.’ Snape said, his tone offering no actual intention on wishing for it to have been pleasant at all.

‘As best I could, thank you. Did you need something from me?’ Lupin asked taking a bite of the sweet marmalade toast.

‘Yes, actually,’ He saw the corner of Snape’s mouth curl into a sardonic smirk. ‘When I was kind enough to take over the extra work of teaching your class, I assigned some homework. But seeing as you are back, and looking well,’ Lupin noted the sarcastic tone in the last word. ‘Perhaps you could take over the marking, it is your class after all Lupin.’

‘Yes of course Severus, I am very grateful,’ Lupin replied giving him a nod. ‘I can mark them today actually.’

'Perfect,' Snape said uncharacteristically, Lupin blinked in sudden surprise. ‘Dare I say Lupin, you might even find the essays… introspective.’

Before he could offer any further information, Snape strode off, leaving Lupin with one final glimpse of an ominous sneer. He sat motionless, watching after the potion's teacher as his billowing cloak disappeared out the doors. The once sweet and crunchy toast now sat soggy and bitter in his mouth, he frowned working through the words Snape had left him to digest.

_Introspective_

The morsels of breakfast suddenly sat unpleasantly in his stomach, Lupin grabbed his glass of water and washed the mush in his mouth down. With another quick glance at his watch, he groaned.

_Bugger it_

He pulled out his cotton handkerchief and folded the remains of toast and apple quarters into it before stuffing it back into his pocket.

Lupin stood up and rushed out of the hall to his first lesson, still frowning as he turned the corner to where his classroom was. He had a good inclination to what Snape had meant with his particular choice of words. A nasty image of parents with pitchforks and a disappointed Dumbledore sacking him flashed through his mind as he opened the door and stepped inside.

‘Good morning everyone, I apologise for my tardiness.’ Lupin said as ordinarily as he could. He scanned over the many eyes that now looked back at him, waiting for some sign of disgust or fear.

‘Professor, you’re back!’

‘You’re alive!’

‘When we didn’t see you at breakfast, we were certain Snape would be back teaching us.’ Neville added placing his hand over his chest in clear relief.

Lupin allowed for his shoulders to ease briefly. ‘ _Professor_ Snape, Neville, and yes I am quite alive Seamus.’ He chuckled.

‘We thought he had snuffed you out,’ Ron said, turning to Harry who nodded in agreement. ‘He’s been after your job for years.’

‘Is that so?’ Lupin asked nonchalantly, pulling off his teaching robes and draping them over his chair.

‘Yeah!’ Dean said looking around nervously as if Snape might just jump out from underneath a desk with a knife.

Hermione raised her hand. ‘Professor, I tried to tell him that we were still on chapter three, _Barely Dangerous, But Should be Avoided_ , but he was quite adamant to skip ahead.’

‘Way ahead.’ Ron chimed in rolling his eyes.

Lupin nodded thoughtfully as he paged through his own textbook for today’s lesson, he frowned slightly, anticipating that his suspicions were indeed correct.

‘Professor, does this mean the section on werewolves will be in this term’s tests?’ Hermione asked anxiously.

Ron snorted shaking his head as the rest of the class erupted into groans and retorts that they hadn't even thought about that.

Lupin swallowed hard, feeling as if a piece of toast had lodged itself in his throat, he reached for his shirt collar and tugged slightly.

‘I am sure Professor Snape had his reasons everyone.’ He said holding up his hand to quieten the students down. He placed his textbook down and turned his back to the class. ‘Now, should we begin with the lesson?

As his students obediently quietened down, Lupin waved his wand above him and instantly a blackboard dropped down, covering his nose and mouth instinctively as a great puff of chalk dust unsettled itself into the air. He gently tapped the piece of chalk with the end of his wand, it flew onto the board and waited for him to continue.

Lupin turned back around to look at his class. ‘I thought today we could discuss a creature that was recently reported in the Daily Prophet.’

‘Oh! Is it the Sphinx Professor?’ Lavender asked excitedly. ‘I read a stray cat got into Gringotts and infected half the Sphinx guards with some kind of feline flu. The goblins were in an absolute panic.’

Lupin smiled and dragged his finger down his own textbook to the page number. ‘I see you have been keeping track with the news Lavender, page 277 please class.’

The lesson had ran smoothly, despite his own nervousness, and with time to spare Lupin offered the class a riddle of their own to work out.

‘What disappears as soon as you say its name?’ He said raising his eyebrows at his students, the piece of chalk echoed him and tapped out the words behind him. ‘Now, whoever is first to come to me with the correct answer, may have the rest of the lesson free.’

He grinned at the sudden rush of excited chatter.

‘But before you begin, please place Professor Snape’s essays on your desk so I may collect them.’

Lupin walked up and down the rows of desk collecting parchment as his students sat trying to work out the riddle. His eyes glanced over the title, _How to Recognise a Werewolf and Kill Them_. He clenched his jaw as he picked up the last essay and walked back towards his own desk, feeling weary.

He sat down, paging through the chapter he had been avoiding until needed for reference. Whether any of his students would eventually place the clues together or not, Snape would be just as happy to know that Lupin was squirming in his own guilt. He felt as exposed as a rat, trying to pass off as a human. He rubbed his temple trying to loosen the tension. He glanced up at Harry through his fingers, who was frowning and nodding as Ron and him worked out the riddle together. Lupin released a deep breath and reached for the first rolls of parchment.

_Hermione Granger_

Well, he thought to himself, if someone could follow the breadcrumbs this was the student. He began reading the crammed writing and double sided rolls of parchment. It was, as Snape promised, introspective to say the least. His mouth twisted as he looked at the visual aids describing what he had, but only four nights ago, transformed into. Lupin raised his eyebrows in genuine interest as he turned over the page and read through a table of pre and post-transformation symptoms:

_Humans with the affliction may succumb to the skin condition eczema, often found on the hands, feet, knees and even neck. This is largely due to skin irritation caused by the rapid growth and contraction of fur during the transformation stages._

Lupin’s eyes blinked slowly over the words and onto his hands. There was the visual aid, clear as day, on himself. The red and dry patches of irritated skin tingled and itched as his eyes glanced over them. He immediately pulled his one hand away and placed it on his lap under the desk.

_This is what you get for forgetting your ointment you fool._

He had grown careless at his time in Hogwarts, feeling self-assured under the safety of Dumbledore. Greedily he had taken advantage, and now had become negligent in hiding the evidence. With the clever minds and prying eyes around him, adding in his monthly absentness, he was at greater risk than he had ever been outside the school. Lupin felt suddenly self-conscious sitting on display at the front of his class, handing out riddles and dressing in teaching cloaks – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He sighed feeling his heart pick up a pace, and circled Hermione’s full marks with an extra five points to Gryffindor for good measure.

Lupin knew immediately that Harry’s essay was next just by the seating order. As he picked up the rolls of parchment, he felt a quick brush of relief that his, unlike Hermione’s, was single sided and double spaced.

Lupin began reading, pushing away the urge to skip the essay altogether when he saw the words _dangerous, uncontrollable, and deadly_ appear _._ He was his teacher first and foremost, he reminded himself, he had lost the privilege to be called anything other than that when he had made the decision to never be in contact with Harry for most of the boy's life. And so, he endured the surreal and unpleasant feeling of reading James and Lily’s son list the ways to best get him killed.

Unexpectedly, the corners of Lupin’s mouth began to tug. Harry, who must have eventually found the topic quite tiresome, had drifted off into his own creative explanations.

_Werewolves have rather large teeth, and they could probably take a considerable chunk out of someone’s buttocks. They are known to howl at the moon, but I don’t think only werewolves do this, I once saw a Pomeranian howl. Come to think about it, that could have very much been a werewolf as it bit my aunt once on the nose and she got a nasty infection from it. Since then, she has become prone to chasing the neighbour’s cats. So, I would steer clear of Pomeranians as well._

Lupin quickly covered his mouth to hide his growing smile, he suddenly thanked Merlin himself that Snape had not taken to marking these essays himself. As he continued to read, both to Lupin’s amusement and disappointment as his teacher, Harry’s solution on how to kill a werewolf had also fallen victim to boredom.

_I once saw a muggle movie where the guy killed a werewolf with silver bullets. I don’t know about most wizards, but I don’t normally walk around with a gun and silver bullets in my back pocket, so I guess if I ever met one I’ll just throw a couple of paperclips at the werewolf and hope that’s good enough._

Lupin let out a rather large uncontrolled snort of laughter which he quickly covered up with a cough.

In a fleeting moment, he believed James had written this, it had to be. Lupin impulsively reached for his chest where his heart sat miserably before kicking him out of the surreal thought. He scratched the back of his head as he wondered how he would pass Harry on this essay.

_James, you’d be in tears mate._

Lupin circled a barely passing mark below Harry’s concluding paragraph of ' _I_ _don't particularly want to meet a werewolf, but how much worse could it be to a three headed-dog'_ (Lupin decided it was best not to ask). He smiled reading over his favourite bits again, altogether grateful he had wrestled through the selfish urge to skip over Harry’s essay.

‘Excuse me Professor.’

Lupin quickly rubbed the corner of his eye and looked up still carrying the ghost of a smile. ‘Yes Ron? You figured it out did you?’

‘I think so, the name of the thing is silence?’ The boy rubbed the back of his neck unsure of himself.

Lupin grinned at him. ‘Yes it is, you may have the rest of the lesson off.’

Instantly, the class erupted into disappointed groans.

Ron grinned back at him before turning around and giving Harry a thumbs up, which was returned enthusiastically.

‘I had that written down, and I crossed it out!’ Seamus said banging his head against his desk.

Lupin, feeling lighter than he did at the start of his lesson, pulled out the remnants of his breakfast from his pocket and unfolded his handkerchief before reaching for the next roll of parchment.

He smiled picking up a browning piece of apple, _introspective indeed Severus_ _, much obliged._

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a GIF sequence I found on Tumblr. If I'm correct, it's a deleted scene from Prisoner of Azkaban, where Lupin looks up at his class while they are working. It just seemed like something was going through his mind, and well, I needed to write it out to understand what it was.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Happy new year everyone, whatever negativity the previous year left behind may it remain in the past.
> 
> Comments are always always always appreciated.


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